Allan Pinkerton--A Man on the Cutting Edge

By Jennifer Uhlarik

 

It’s been a bit of a dry spell in my publishing journey. My last novel, Love’s Fortress, was published in March of 2022, but I’m excited to say that on April 1, 2025, my fifteenth story, Love and Order, will be coming out. This one is different in a couple of ways from anything else I’ve published. For one, it’s my first true mystery. For another, it’s told in the form of three interconnected romance novellas, sort of in the format of an episode of the TV show, Law & Order. The novel revolves around three orphaned siblings who were separated when they got adopted to different families in different locations from an orphan train. As adults, they each have gone into some form of law enforcement or criminal justice (Pinkertons, bounty hunters, and attorneys—OH MY!) and are reunited as they try to bring a serial killer to justice. Each part of the larger novel focuses on one of the siblings and their part of the case, from investigation all the way through courtroom drama (with some bounty hunter action mixed in), and each novella has its own romance. So, in gearing up for my next new release, I thought we’d visit some of the fun stuff I got to research in writing this tale. Today, we’ll look at Allan Pinkerton and the Pinkerton National Detective Agency.

 

Allan Pinkerton

 

Scottish-born Allan Pinkerton was born on August 21, 1819, the son of a retired police officer. Unfortunately, his father died by the time Allan was ten, forcing the boy to leave school and train as a cooper (a barrel-maker). As an avid reader, Allan’s education continued through the many books he read on a variety of topics.

 

In 1842, Pinkerton came to America and settled in Dundee Township, Illinois, where he set up his own barrel-making business. He worked to build a snug cabin, sent for his wife who was in Chicago at the time, and happily conducted business in Dundee.

 

Prairie Pirates

 

But Pinkerton was an abolitionist who allowed his home to be used as a stop on the Underground Railroad. It was this fact which caused him to come under the scrutiny of the Banditti of the Prairie—a loose alliance of outlaw gangs which operated in Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and beyond. These gangs were best known for an escalating list of crimes such as burglary, livestock theft, stagecoach robbery, highway robbery, counterfeiting, and even murder. They didn’t care for a do-gooder like Pinkerton aiding slaves in their flight to freedom, so they burglarized his home. 

 

Not one to take the burglary lying down, Pinkerton took note of those he saw on his trips into the woods as he searched for timber to make barrel staves. It was here, he began noticing the comings and goings of some from this Banditti group.

 

A wise and patient man, Pinkerton watched and waited, keeping track of who he saw, where, and what they were doing. After some time, he presented the Chicago police with a detailed report on what he’d found, and they were able to take down the gang, which was thick into a counterfeiting scheme. For his trouble, he was asked to become Chicago’s very first police detective in 1849.

 

Hiring The First Female Detective

 

Pinkerton’s stint with the Chicago Police lasted only about a year. In 1850, he and attorney Edward Rucker started what would eventually come to be called the Pinkerton National Detective Agency. Early jobs for the agency included supporting other abolitionists in their meetings, as well as investigating robberies of the Illinois Central Railroad. It was this connection that led Pinkerton to meet and befriend the up-and-coming attorney, Abraham Lincoln, who was the contact person on all Illinois Central Railroad cases.

 

One day in 1856, Allan Pinkerton was surprised to find widow Kate Warne in his Chicago office. She presented his newspaper ad requesting detectives and said she wanted the job. It took some convincing, though he decided to take the chance on her. It ended up being a good gamble for them both. Warne was hired as the first female detective in the United States, and the Pinkertons got an amazing operative who became the head of the Pinkerton’s Female Detective Bureau. (I’ll give you more details of Kate Warne in next month’s post).

 

Predecessor to the United States Secret Service

 

The Presidential Election of 1860 was a tumultuous one. When Abraham Lincoln was elected in November of that year, he became the first Republican candidate to win a presidential election—and the already-divided nation was driven apart even further. States threatened to secede, and people plotted to take out President-Elect Lincoln. It became evident that some of those threats were credible and might happen during Lincoln’s 70-city Whistle Stop Tour, leading up to his inauguration in early 1861.

Allan Pinkerton sent Kate Warne undercover to ferret out the “Baltimore Plot.” It was in Baltimore where President-Elect Lincoln would have to take a carriage from on train station to another to continue his journey, and in that vulnerable transfer, Southern sympathizers and secessionists planned to do him in. Once the details were discovered, Pinkerton and Warne concocted a plan to disguise Lincoln as the invalid brother of Kate, also in disguise, and were able to safely get him away to a separate train and on into Washington D.C. for the inauguration. Because of the Pinkerton Agency’s involvement in protecting the President-elect, it is often viewed as the precursor to the modern-day Secret Service.

 

Forerunner of the U.S. Army Counterintelligence Unit

During the Civil War, Allan Pinkerton worked closely with General George B. McClellan, who commanded the Army of the Potomac. Pinkerton worked as a spy, often going undercover into enemy territory to gather intelligence on troop numbers and locations of the Confederate Army. It has been widely debated whether he helped or hurt the Union with his spying. Some have said he so overinflated the numbers of troops the Union would be facing that it caused McClellan to act too cautiously. However, others stated that the numbers and intelligence he delivered was really quite accurate, but that the inflation came from some less trained operatives or from McClellan himself. Regardless, the type of data and his procedures in gathering it are often viewed as a model or precursor for the United States Army’s Counterintelligence Unit.

 

One of the First Criminal Databases

 

Allan Pinkerton was meticulous about keeping records—so much so that he is also
credited with creating one of the earliest criminal databases. Known as “the Rogue’s Gallery,” this database included mugshots and case histories on Pinkerton cases. He and his operatives would include physical descriptions, known birthmarks, scars, and other distinguishing marks; any aliases; known friendships or alliances with other “rogues”; newspaper articles and clippings about the criminals and their exploits; extensive rap sheets of their past crimes; and any areas of expertise for the person in question. Around the time of his death, Pinkerton was working to centralize this database with other similar databases from other detective and law enforcement agencies, similar to the FBI’s criminal database in use today.

 

It's Your Turn: What cutting-edge aspect of Allan Pinkerton’s life or detective agency did you find most surprising? Why?

 

Jennifer Uhlarik discovered the western genre as a pre-teen when she swiped the only “horse” book she found on her older brother’s bookshelf. A new love was born. Across the next ten years, she devoured Louis L’Amour westerns and fell in love with the genre. In college at the University of Tampa, she began penning her own story of the Old West. Armed with a B.A. in writing, she has finaled and won in numerous writing competitions, and been on the ECPA best-seller list several times. In addition to writing, she has held jobs as a private business owner, a schoolteacher, a marketing director, and her favorite—a full-time homemaker. Jennifer is active in American Christian Fiction Writers, Women Writing the West, and is a lifetime member of the Florida Writers Association. She lives near Tampa, Florida, with her husband and fur children.

 

Available for Pre-Order (Coming April 1, 2025):

 

Love and Order by Jennifer Uhlarik

Separated as children when they were adopted out to different families from an orphan train, the Braddock siblings of Callie, Andie, and Rion have each grown up and taken on various jobs within law enforcement and criminal justice. When the hunt for a serial killer with a long history of murders reunites the brother and sisters in Cambria Springs, Colorado, they find themselves not only in a fight for justice, but also a fight to keep their newly reunited family intact. How will they navigate these challenges when further complicated by unexpected romances?